toxic waste – The National Wildlife Federation Bloghttp://blog.nwf.org
The National Wildlife Federation's blogThu, 24 May 2018 16:06:07 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.5139259312A Mine Here? We Can’t Bear Ithttp://blog.nwf.org/2014/08/a-mine-here-we-cant-bear-it/
http://blog.nwf.org/2014/08/a-mine-here-we-cant-bear-it/#commentsFri, 15 Aug 2014 18:16:40 +0000http://blog.nwf.org/?p=99276Every summer, brown bears gather in the pristine waterways of Alaska’s Bristol Bay to catch wild salmon swimming upstream to spawn. But soon, this vast habitat area that is home to brown bears and the largest runs of salmon in the world could be devastated by a massive open pit copper mine.

The abundant runs of wild salmon in Alaska’s Bristol Bay watershed are a mainstay of the brown bear’s diet during the summer. Photo by Deidre Brown/NWF Photo Contest.

What Members of Our Community Have to Say!

“It is good for the health of us all to protect the wildlife and clean water of Bristol Bay, Alaska from the devastation and pollution of toxic mining. The most important way to do this at this time is by stopping the proposed Pebble Mine.” – James, Kentucky

“Brown bears, salmon and other wildlife can’t speak for themselves, so we need to do it for them.” – Lee, New York

“As a former resident of Alaska, I urge you to protect the wildlife and clean water of Bristol Bay, Alaska from the devastation and pollution of toxic mining by stopping the proposed Pebble Mine. The recent Mount Polley disaster in BC shows the consequences this type of toxic mine waste can have on the environment.” – Tom, Arizona

“You have the power to save one of the last untouched watersheds left in North America. A place that has sustained people for thousands of years, and will continue to if it is protected.” – Charles, Michigan

“Despite the fact that I live thousands of miles from Alaska, the quality of the environment there is important to me.” – Chaille, New Hampshire

“Here in Idaho we live with the lasting toxic mining effects in our rivers, lakes, lands, wildlife, fish and yes, even our children all have levels of toxic mining waste in their blood.” – Lauren, Idaho

“LARGEST SALMON RUN IN THE WORLD…….END OF DISCUSSION!” – Beck, Illinois

“Bristol Bay, Alaska is one of the last places free from the many aspects of industrial pollution. The effects of the toxic mining from the proposed Pebble Mine are guaranteed to have powerful and long-lasting negative consequences, in addition to the typically occurring unexpected horrors.” – Rodney, Alaska

“Wildlife and a clean environment are the great gifts we can pass on.” – Shannon, Arizona

“Rather than react after another environmental disaster, please prevent one by stopping the proposed Pebble Mine.” – Jeannette, Virginia

“This is so important to me and hopefully you.” – Susan, Colorado

Take Action for Alaska’s Brown Bears and Wild Salmon

The Environmental Protection Agency is charged with protecting the wildlife and clean water in Bristol Bay and has the authority to restrict, prohibit and deny certain mining operations—but they must hear as many voices as possible in support of stopping the mine and protecting Bristol Bay.

Mining interests are pushing hard to get a green light on the Pebble Mine project. That’s why it is crucial that we all weigh in about the importance of protecting vital habitat for wildlife like the brown bear and salmon from the devastation of a massive mine.

]]>http://blog.nwf.org/2014/08/a-mine-here-we-cant-bear-it/feed/299276Toxic Mining Waste: Just Moments from a Disaster for Wildlifehttp://blog.nwf.org/2014/08/toxic-mining-waste-just-moments-from-a-disaster-for-wildlife/
http://blog.nwf.org/2014/08/toxic-mining-waste-just-moments-from-a-disaster-for-wildlife/#respondTue, 12 Aug 2014 16:46:52 +0000http://blog.nwf.org/?p=99200When I saw footage last week of a tailing dam collapse at Mount Polley Mine, my immediate thought was of the Chino Mine near my hometown of Silver City, New Mexico. There’s a tailing dam 4 miles long and a mile wide about 20 minutes from where I grew up, where wastewater and other toxic materials are pumped and stored from the mine.

But I also thought about our work at National Wildlife Federation to protect Alaska’s Bristol Bay from the Pebble Mine—a tailing dam breach in that magnificent place would be nothing short of devastating.

Alaska’s Bristol Bay, pristine home to the world’s largest salmon run, brown bears and hundreds of other species. Photo courtesy Jim Klug.

What exactly is a tailing dam?

There are several ways of extracting valuable mineral ores (copper, silver and gold, etc) from the ground. Most ores are far from pure and are found as mineral compounds, so separating the valuable ore from the worthless rock can be difficult. Smelting is one way: you pulverize the ore and earth and use a high temperature furnace to separate the valuable minerals (a process called concentration). The process itself is dirty, resulting in a lot of byproducts like sulphuric acid. The larger problem is one of waste: of all the rock crushed and smelted and refined, only about 2 percent is worth something. For every $1,300 ounce of gold extracted, 49 other ounces of worthless rock were mined. For every $3.17 pound of copper, 50 pounds of rock has piled up.

Regardless of the specific mining methods, one thing is common for all tailings: they contain minerals and compounds from before the mining process (like fluorite, arsenic and mercury), and additives that were used during the mining process, (such as sulphuric acid and cyanide). In the early days of mining, tailings were discharged down a river or piled up in giant heaps, and water or wind could carry them away. These days, the tailing slurry is transported to special storage areas called tailing impoundments/dams. Usually constructed of whatever happens to be lying around (including the tailing themselves), the structures are huge and often filled with a dangerous mixture. The latest pond (No. 7) for the tailing dam near my hometown will be 230 feet tall when it’s completed, and have a storage capacity of 450 million tons (PDF).

Right now, there is no law or regulation requiring tailings impoundments to be lined with any material to prevent leaks. So it’s not a matter of if they leak, it’s when they leak. In fact, the No. 7 Chino Mine pond is designed for seepage, because any kind of liner would be clogged by the slurry, causing structural problems for the dam.

Pebble Mine and the 700-foot dams

The Chino Mine is a copper porphyry (read: low grade) mine. The proposed Pebble Mine would be one too. The only way to profitably obtain the precious metals from the earth is to conduct mining on a massive scale. Here’s a photo of the Chino Mine:

The Chino Mine, an open-pit copper mine in Southwest New Mexico. The tiny trucks you see are each about 40 feet tall. NWF photo by Avelino Maestas.

That’s one big hole in the ground, but it’s not even large by worldwide comparison—and the Pebble Mine would be larger. How big? Some 3 miles wide and 4,000 feet deep. It would generate an estimated 10.2 billion tons of waste material. And a lot of that would be contained in tailing dams 700 feet tall.

Protecting Bristol Bay

Watch this video (skip to the 11-minute mark) of the broken tailing dam for Mount Polley Mine spilling into Hazeltine Creek, which is itself part of a larger system of rivers and lakes in British Columbia. Now imagine a dam 700 feet tall doing the same thing in Bristol Bay.

Speak Out to Protect Bristol Bay and Habitat for Brown Bears and Wild Salmon

The untouched streams and waterways of Bristol Bay, where brown bears make their home and wild salmon spawn, are considered exceptionally pure by biologists. Even the deepest parts of these waters are so pristine that you can see clearly to the bottom. Right now is our best chance to make sure Bristol Bay’s watershed is protected from toxic, polluting mining waste that inevitably would leak from Pebble Mine into this pristine habitat.

The area is also incredible habitat for brown bears, who rely on the summer salmon runs every year. The proposed mine would immediately disrupt this summer ritual, and a toxic waste disaster would cause irreparable harm to the bears’ habitat.

Yesterday, Representatives Raul Grijalva (AZ), Rush Holt (NJ), Colleen Hanabusa (HI) and eleven other members of the House of Representatives wrote to the heads of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Army Corps of Engineers, and White House Council on Environmental Quality urging them to close two loopholes in the regulations implementing the Clean Water Act (read the press release and letter here). These loopholes allow mining companies to discharge untreated—often toxic—industrial waste into the nation’s waters.

Not surprisingly, the Clean Water Act loopholes have harmed communities and wildlife that depend on the waters poisoned by mining pollution. Last month, National Wildlife Federation (NWF) released a new report, Honoring the River: How Hardrock Mining Impacts Tribal Communities, which describes the particularly negative effects of mining pollution on the nation’s tribal communities.

What is surprising is how little attention has been paid to this issue. According to EPA, mining is the number one source of toxic pollution in this country. In Representative Grijalva’s home state of Arizona, there are more than 24,000 abandoned mine sites. This is a huge problem that can be readily addressed with simple changes to agency regulations—yet the Administration has done nothing.

The truth is that mines are generally located in remote places and the communities most affected by them are often small, with little political and economic clout. The dangerous waste disposal practices that are authorized by the Clean Water Act loopholes would never be tolerated if mines were located near Chicago or Boston. Unfortunately, “out of sight, out of mind.”

This is why NWF is so pleased to see a letter from members of Congress drawing attention to the two Clean Water Act loopholes. As Representative Holt said in a press release,

“Too often mining companies are given sweetheart deals at the expense of local communities and the environment. The Clean Water Act loopholes addressed in this letter can and should be fixed administratively. Expedited action will help to ensure that low-income and native communities are protected from unsafe drinking water that has been tainted by toxic mining waste.”

]]>http://blog.nwf.org/2013/05/house-members-speak-up-for-clean-water-safe-communities/feed/180735Pebble Mine Even More Disastrous Than First Thoughthttp://blog.nwf.org/2013/05/pebble-mine-even-more-disastrous-than-first-thought/
http://blog.nwf.org/2013/05/pebble-mine-even-more-disastrous-than-first-thought/#commentsMon, 20 May 2013 14:24:14 +0000http://blog.nwf.org/?p=80608

Photo: USFWS

After months of cold and ice, Bristol Bay in southwest Alaska is beginning to spring to life. With summer will come millions of bright red sockeye salmon returning from the sea to spawn in the pristine rivers and streams from which they hatched. An abundance of hungry wildlife including enormous coastal grizzly bears, as well as thousands of commercial fishermen and women who depend on these iconic fish for their livelihood, will not be far behind.

But if the proposed Pebble Mine is built, it could have devastating consequences for this wilderness paradise, according to a newly revised watershed assessment on large-scale mining in Bristol Bay by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)—which considered 233,000 public comments, consulted with tribes, and received input from independent scientists and peer reviewers. The report finds that even in a best case scenario—with no leaks or failures—the massive mine would destroy up to 90 miles of salmon streams and up to 4,800 acres of wetlands, and produce acidic and toxic-laden waters.

As a result, local grizzlies, wolves, bald eagles, and other wildlife that consume salmon will all be impacted. So will Alaska Natives, who have relied on subsistence fishing for thousands of years. And so will the commercial fishery, which, according to a new report by researchers at the University of Alaska’s Institute for Social and Economic Research, provides 12,000 jobs and about $500 million annually in direct income to workers across the country.

All of this is at risk from Pebble Mine, the colossal gold and copper mine proposed at the headwaters of Bristol Bay that would generate up to 10 billion tons of toxic mine waste stored in massive earthen dams covering over 10 square miles. Even under the best conditions, it would be virtually impossible to keep the toxic waste from leaking into rivers and streams, putting salmon—which are highly sensitive to the slightest increases in certain metals like copper–at great risk.

And if the dams break, it would be absolutely devastating to the river and wildlife downstream. Just last month, a massive landslide at Bingham Canyon mine in Utah—which registered as a 5.1 magnitude earthquake and engulfed tens of millions of dollars in mining equipment and infrastructure—was a preview of the disaster that could occur if Pebble Mine is built. Incredibly, Pebble Mine would be twice the size of Bingham Canyon mine and located in an active earthquake zone.

The EPA’s review provides more than enough information to know that Pebble Mine would pose enormous, irreversible harm to this critically important watershed, and the wildlife and people that depend on it. Yet, despite these risks and the overwhelming opposition to Pebble Mine, foreign mining corporations are charging full steam ahead.

Now is the time for the Obama administration to act. We only have until May 31st to comment on these new findings and urge the EPA to use its power under the Clean Water Act to stop this disastrous project. If we don’t speak up now, Pebble Mine could devastate this wilderness paradise and the rich community of wildlife that calls it home.

]]>http://blog.nwf.org/2013/05/pebble-mine-even-more-disastrous-than-first-thought/feed/280608Honoring the Riverhttp://blog.nwf.org/2013/04/honoring-the-river/
http://blog.nwf.org/2013/04/honoring-the-river/#commentsThu, 25 Apr 2013 14:21:46 +0000http://blog.nwf.org/?p=79316Everyone knows that mining can be a dirty business, but it turns out that mines are particularly bad news for tribal communities.

Photo: Colin Ruggiero

For more than a century, American Indians and Alaska Natives have suffered the impacts of mining while enjoying few of its benefits. Outdated federal land-use policies encourage mining near reservations where tribal members depend on fish and game for subsistence and cultural activities, and laws meant to protect tribal interests and sovereignty have often been inadequate or ignored. The tribes face more threats as a new wave of exploration and mining projects sweeps through the country.

New NWF Report Tells Story of Mining and Tribes

The National Wildlife Federation has just released a new report, Honoring the River: How Hardrock Mining Impacts Tribal Communities, which tells the story of mining and tribes, from the checkered history of federal legislation allowing mining companies to lease minerals on tribal lands—often without tribal consent—to the many new mines being proposed near tribal communities and lands.

Photo: Earthworks

The report also describes the legacy of water pollution left by the mining industry and urges the Obama Administration to close the two mining loopholes in the Clean Water Act’s regulations. These loopholes actually allow mines to treat rivers, lakes, and wetlands as waste dumps for toxic, acid-producing tailings. Water pollution caused by improperly stored mining waste has had a particularly devastating effect on tribal communities.

One of the key points of the report is that tribes view water as sacred, something to be honored. Our government could certainly learn from this perspective. Despite its commitment to clean water and environmental justice, the Administration has been slow to make the relatively simple rule changes needed to close the loopholes in the Clean Water Act. It hasn’t honored the river.

Tribes Speak Out Against Mining

Even as tribes continue to suffer from poisoned rivers, contaminated sacred sites, and other devastation caused by old and abandoned mines, they face a new round of threats. Mines are being proposed from Alaska’s Bristol Bay, a watershed that supports the greatest remaining runs of wild sockeye salmon on earth, to the Great Lakes basin, which contains 84 percent of North America’s supply of fresh surface water.

Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Chairman Mike Wiggins is fighting to stop the permitting of the largest iron-ore, open-pit mine in the world slated for the headwaters of the Bad River, six miles from the reservation border in northern Wisconsin ceded territory. The Gogebic Taconite mine’s proposed location threatens the Kakagon and Bad River Sloughs, a 16,000-acre wetland complex at the mouths of the two rivers that contains valuable flora and fauna, including wild rice beds of cultural significance to the tribes. These resources are within the Bad River Reservation and contain 40 percent of the Lake Superior Basin coastal wetlands.

“This ecosystem is as good as what we have left in the state and in the world. We all have an impact on the environment. We really have to humble ourselves. Environmental stewardship is a sacrifice.”

-Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Chairman Mike Wiggins

We may not be able to undo all of the inequities of the past, but we can learn from the original stewards of the land and require mines to operate responsibly. Surely nobody can argue that mines should be able to store untreated industrial waste in living waters. Closing the mining loopholes would not stop hardrock mining, but it would help protect tribal communities, all of our communities, from the chemicals, heavy metals, and acid mine drainage produced by modern mines.

Experts say the state is at a crossroads: It has more than 11,000 contaminated sites and leaky underground storage tanks, many without owners, and can’t keep using Band-Aids to fix them. […]

The state is out of money from two voter-approved bond issues that were used to clean up contamination for the last 22 years.

One of my first thoughts was, how many are in my backyard? And my next thought was, how many people know about this?

For the last few decades, Michigan has been using quick-fix approaches to clean and restore these sites. But sadly, at a time when we need to have big solutions to fix this problem, we’re left with even fewer resources to do it. The Detroit Free Press did a full page spread, illustrating the need for an all hands-on-deck approach.

What’s the solution for this massive undertaking? Some conservation groups believe a 3/8 cent sales tax is a good start. Over 25 years, this fund would provide millions of dollars for environmental protection & cleanups. It’s critical for the health of our natural resources, Great Lakes, people & wildlife that we participate in the discussion to find a solution.

I can’t imagine reading another headline in 20 years that says “Michigan has 25,000 toxic spots, with no money for cleanup.” Can you?